Criminal Attitudes
by otherhawk
Summary: Tess has reasons for not liking criminals. Somehow, she has to reconcile that with loving Danny Ocean.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything to do with O11

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><p>Tess is nine when their house is robbed. Her abiding memory is the next night, waking up in the middle of the night to go and get a glass of water and finding her mother crying in front of the blank space on the wall where her favourite painting used to hang. It was an heirloom, worth a small fortune. The police are in the house a lot for the next few days. Mom says it is a violation and she and Dad argue constantly in hushed voices. "If they can break into the house once", she says, when she thinks Tess can't hear, "They can do it any time. Just think what could have happened."<p>

Tess doesn't know exactly what Mom is alluding to, but her tone is dark and frightening, and for months afterwards Tess lies awake at night, listening fearfully to each little noise, convinced that she can hear the criminals coming back. After school, in the evenings, she watches the news and learns about new crimes to be afraid of. All manner of dreadful things happen every day. She is afraid to leave the house and her grades start to slide, and when she tries to explain what is wrong to Mom and Dad, they just hug her tightly and Mom cries. For the first time in her life, she does not feel safe.

They get the insurance money, but that doesn't make them whole again.

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><p>She is nineteen years old, fresh-faced and excited, and Dad is driving her back to college for the start of her sophomore year. The car is packed with her cases and boxes and Dad has been teasing her all day about whether she really needs all this stuff, and she's been smiling and laughing with mock offence. It's just the two of them now, since Mom died, and she is Daddy's girl and proud of it.<p>

It all happens very suddenly. The car pulls up at a red light, and that's when the two men leap out at them, forcing the doors open and pulling them out. She is dragged by her hair onto the sidewalk, and she is screaming, but he lets her go almost at once.

"Wallet and car keys," the other man bellows at Dad, and as Tess watches, Dad meekly hands them over without a word. "Watch too," the man snarls, and Dad takes it off without even a word, and she knows that's the right thing to do, the smart thing to do, but her eyes are burning with his humiliation.

"You too, sweetheart," the man behind her sniggers. "Hand over your purse and that pretty necklace you're wearing."

Hands shaking, she obeys, but as soon as her hands go to her neck, he is leaning forwards, and she gasps in shock and horror as he licks her neck and flips her skirt up with a hoot of lewd laughter. "Nice panties!"

"No! Tess!" Dad screams, and he throws himself forwards towards them, but her attacker just swats him like he was a fly, and as he falls to the ground – her sweet, funny Dad! - he almost lazily swings his foot, kicking Dad right in the forehead.

"No!" She cries and she struggles to get away, but for a few long moments they hold her still, laughing and brazenly groping at her breasts and the tears are rolling down her face as Dad looks up at her, neither of them able to break eye contact.

It's only a few seconds before they shove her away and run to the car, driving off with a screech of tyre spin. It feels like so much longer, and as she sinks helplessly to the ground, Dad turns his head away.

Her father isn't seriously hurt. Not physically anyway, but he takes a lot of time off work and he's never quite the same after that. He smiles less, jokes less, and there is more distance between them than there ever was before. He seldom looks her in the eye, and when he does, she can see bitter guilt and shame there.

The criminals are never caught. She sees their faces every time she closes her eyes for months and she knows they are out there with everything they took – not just the car, but her sketch books, her music collection, her photo albums. (_Her dignity. Dad's pride._)

Dad dies two years after she finishes college. She feels like the last few years could have been so much _more._

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><p>It's maybe a year after that and she is deep in college life, studying hard but still popular enough that she never has to try to find a party or a date on a Friday night.<p>

It is late at night and she is in an otherwise empty corner of the rec room, working on a paper on the early stages of Dadaism. She's staring at a blank sheet of paper and nibbling on the end of her pen when she hears a creaking noise coming from the far window. She looks up in time to see a dark figure pulling the window open and sneaking inside.

Shocked, she just stares as he creeps over to the counter and the fridge that's there, apparently not noticing her at all, and he pulls it open and greedily starts pulling out the food that people have left there and stuffing it in his backpack.

"Hey!" she exclaims out loud.

His head snaps up and he turns to stare at her, and she sees that it's just a kid, fourteen or fifteen, but the outrage is rushing through her – he is a thief, he is stealing from her and her friends – and even as he starts to bolt, she leaps to her feet. "Help!" she shouts as loud as she can. "Thief!" He drops his head and runs towards the door, and she manages to stretch out her leg and trip him, sending him crashing to the ground.

A moment later and Mr Stone, the security guard on duty, bursts through the door and tackles the thief as he's getting up, pinning him to the ground and pulling his arms behind his back. "Got you!" he snaps and he looks up at her with a toothy grin. "Well done, miss. This one's been sneaking in and taking everything that's not nailed down for weeks now."

She smiles weakly.

The boy struggles silently on the ground.

For a few weeks, she is famous around the college. The story grows in the telling, and everyone congratulates her for catching the thief. She doesn't boast, but maybe she basks a little.

He was a vagrant, they say. Some teenage runaway out for whatever he can get. Someone makes a joke that this is the closest he was ever going to get to a college education, and soon she's heard it a dozen more times.

The boy was a criminal. Yes, maybe it was only food he was stealing, and yes, maybe he was hungry, but that doesn't excuse him. Stealing is still wrong, they all learned that in kindergarten. It doesn't go 'stealing is wrong unless you really, really want to'. Her sympathy is misplaced.

At night, she remembers his eyes, wide and wild and terrified.

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><p>She meets Danny when she's almost thirty, settled into her life and newly happily single. She isn't looking for anyone but he crashes into her life to the sound of proverbial thunderbolts. She meets him and she loves him almost at once. What more needs to be said?<p>

Danny tries to talk to her two months after they first start dating. They are having a quiet night in her apartment, drinking wine and watching 'The Big Sleep' and she is enjoying the weight of Danny's arm across her shoulders.

"I need to tell you something," Danny says after they've been watching in silence for a while. "It's important."

"Alright?" she agrees, sitting up expectantly.

He hesitates. She has never seen him lost for words before. "It's about work," he starts slowly. "Tess...I'm not - "

There is the sound of the door slamming open followed by raucous laughter and with a grimace she looks round to see her roommate Jenny come in with half a dozen other people in tow.

"Oops!" Jenny puts her hands up to her mouth. "I thought you were out tonight."

"Well we're not," she says crossly.

"Oh, well," Jenny says with a shrug. "We've got beer at least. You're welcome to have some."

One of the men duly holds up a case triumphantly, and then they are swarming over the apartment, turning the TV off and the music up. She exchanges a rueful glance with Danny. So much for their quiet night.

Later she toys with her wine glass as she listens to Jenny's friend Emma talk about how her store was robbed.

"Uh oh," Jenny interrupts with a wide grin. "Don't get Tess started talking about crime. She supports the death penalty for petty theft."

"Hardly," she says stiffly, conscious of Danny's eyes on her, and she doesn't want him to get the idea that she's some extreme right tyrant. "I just think there needs to be more effort put into catching and punishing thieves, that's all. They're criminals and it seems like sometimes the media forgets that. How often do you hear a robbery being called 'brave' or 'daring'? And don't even get me started on heist movies. It's all ridiculously glamourised. You don't get that attitude with murderers or rapists."

"They're hardly on the same level," Danny points out mildly.

She does not want to have this argument She is already irritable from their ruined evening and she thinks of the men who made mother cry, the men who hurt her father, who put their hands on her. "They're all criminals," she says with bitter finality.

Later, in bed and almost asleep, she asks Danny what he wanted to tell her.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," he says softly. "It'll keep." He kisses her brow.

In time she forgets.

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><p>They are married for four years before she learns the truth. She is happy, in spite of the lie or maybe because of it. They love together and Danny is everything she could want.<p>

It's a cold rainy November morning when it all comes crashing down. She is sorting out some clothes to take to the dry cleaners when she finds an empty pack of cigarettes in Danny's suit pocket. He hasn't smoked in years and, frowning, she goes to ask him about it.

He is talking on the phone. She hears everything she shouldn't. He hangs up immediately, and when she asks him, that is the moment he suddenly decides he owes her the truth.

He is a thief. He is a criminal, no different from the men she was so afraid of as a child, no different from the ones who stole Dad's car. The anger and betrayal burn cold. He is a criminal and he lied to her about it. For years, he lied to her, and now he stands there in front of her, apologetic but not sorry and for a moment she does not know him. He is everything she hates.

"How could you?" she demands, and when he starts to talk again - to explain, to rationalise all this, to excuse his crimes - she shakes her head rapidly. "No. No. No, I don't want to know. I don't even want to look at you. Get out, Danny."

"Tess - " He stretches out a hand towards her. "Tess, I'm sorry. I love you."

She takes a step back, fury on her face. "Get out!" she says, flinging the cigarette packet at his feet.

He stoops and picks it up and walks away.

Two weeks later he is in prison.

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><p>Rusty comes to see her at the house the day after Danny is arrested. He looks exhausted and his suit is rumpled, but he smiles tiredly at her and offers to answer any questions she has. Nothing but the truth.<p>

She does not let him in the door.

It seems everyone knows what happened. When she goes out, the neighbours give her strange looks and keep their distance. She is marked now. A criminal's wife. So she stays in, but she cannot escape the phone calls, full of well meant sympathy that makes her feel stupid, or prurient curiosity that makes her feel worse.

Danny is a criminal. She can't escape from that. And everything she thought she knew about him hangs in the balance.

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><p>She goes to see him the night before he is due to be sentenced. She almost doesn't mean to, but she can't help herself. He hasn't called her – <em>he hasn't called <em> - and that thought burns with all the rest.

In truth she doesn't know what she is expecting, but she thinks maybe she thought he would look different somehow. Anxious. Afraid. Diminished. But he is ushered into the room and he smiles at the guards and calls them by their first names and there is nothing to suggest he isn't perfectly at home in this alien world with the bars and the handcuffs and the guns on easy display.

His eyes light up when he sees her. "Tess," he breathes.

"Hello, Danny," she says and her discomfort makes it so much colder than she ever intended. "How have you been?" she adds, wincing at the sheer inanity of the question.

He smiles crookedly. "Can't complain. It's not as bad in here as you think."

That's all about reassuring her. Her lips thin. "I can't say I've given it any thought at all," she lies, because of course she has. She has lain awake at night, worrying about him, frightened he might be hurt and scared and alone...

By the way he looks at her she knows he knows. "It's really not so bad," he says gently.

"I don't want you to go to prison." The words fall out of her, beyond her control.

His eyes are soft. "I don't think there's anything any of us can do about that," he says.

No. He is a criminal. He tried to steal something and now he's going to be punished for it, and that's the way it should be and she knows it is all so very wrong. "Oh, Danny," she says helplessly.

They talk for a while about everything and nothing, and just for a few moments it feels like they are far away from this place. And then the guards come back and tell her it is time to leave.

"Will you write?" Danny asks as she stands up, and for the first time he sounds vulnerable.

She doesn't hesitate. "Of course."

In spite of everything, she is feeling good as she heads home. Even though the tears fall, she is hopeful.

But then Billy next door kicks his ball into their drive as she is getting out the car, and as she picks it up and goes to give it back with a smile, he takes one look at her and runs away screaming. His Mom is on the doorstep and ushers him inside – away - quickly. His Mom. Julie, who has always been so friendly, who they had dinner with just the other month. And now she is looking at Tess like she is a monster and it's all because of Danny. Because of what Danny did – what Danny _is. _

Reality comes crashing back.

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><p>She does not write. In the end, the only way she can get away from what happened is to leave New York. She makes her way to the other side of the country and builds a new, Danny-less life.<p>

In time, the anger cools and she is left with the hurt. He never trusted her. (_And he was right not to trust her; if he'd told her the truth, she would have left in a heartbeat._) And she worries about him and she wonders about him, and she remembers how wonderful he was - and that, at least, was not a lie - and she can't understand how he can be..._Danny_...and be a criminal at the same time.

For a while she devours books on criminology and true crime, looking for accounts of thieves and conmen, looking for answers. Some of them paint such a picture of glamour and goodness that she flings them aside in disgust and disbelief. Robin Hood thieves; she doesn't believe it. She is well aware of their bank balance. Others still whisper words like _calculated_ and _manipulation_ and _sociopath_ and she turns away from them for a different reason, remembering charisma and confidence and wondering if she could have been so wrong about what lurked beneath.

Perhaps the truth lies between the two. She doesn't know.

A couple of times she goes along to a support group for people with family members in prison. She feels uncomfortable and does not share her story, but she at least comes away with the knowledge that the hurt and confusion and disbelief and anger are nothing unusual. It is no comfort.

Eventually, she seeks out a lawyer and files for divorce. It is so much easier than writing to him.

And she meets Terry, and he is everything Danny is not, and she falls in love or thinks she does, and listening to him talk about the - legal - consequence for lawbreakers restores her sense that the universe is in balance.

It is not for a very long time that she realises he doesn't think the consequences apply to him.

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><p>Rusty finds her after the Benedict job, after she has watched the police taking Danny away. Her eyes are dry, and yet she feels like she's been crying for years. She hadn't known what she was doing. She hadn't known what she wanted. And now that she's lost him again, she knows that Danny is more important than anything else.<p>

She wants him back. They can figure out everything else.

For a while, Rusty just sits beside her on the bench in companionable silence and they watch the lights of Vegas together. Rusty offers her a packet of Doritos and she takes a handful and laughs at the sheer absurdity of it all. "I want to get out of here," she says.

He nods. "We _need_ to get out of here."

Yes. She isn't sure – yet – exactly what's happened tonight, but she imagines Terry might be looking for them both. "I need to know what you do," she says. "I need to understand, I need to _see._"

"Okay then." He stands, dusting cheese dust off his hands and smiling brilliantly. "So let's do something about that."

She has never committed a crime in her life before. Never got so much as a parking ticket. But she goes with Rusty on a strange road trip across the country and she watches and learns what a criminal is through his eyes. (_And after all, knowing how Rusty views the world is always going to help her understand _Danny's_ point of view._) She learns how to pick a 'mark' and she is surprised and heartened to realise that it is never about what is easy; the very first con she sees him pull he looks past a dozen people who clearly have more money to go after the man who is swearing at his PA. And she learns what happens next, learns about charm and cunning and letting the 'mark' play himself. Most of all, she learns that he – that _they –_ are not about violence or innocent victims.

Maybe that's something she should have known all along.

And she takes part a couple of times in little ways and experiences the heady thrill of stealing. She feels nervous every time – sick to the stomach, in truth – and she knows that this is never going to be what she wants to do, but she thinks she understands a little more at the end of it.

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><p>And then they meet up with Danny again as he is released from prison and just at the sight of him she smiles inside, joy fluttering through her, and she knows she has made the right choice.<p>

She isn't always going to agree with everything he does. She isn't always going to approve. But he is a criminal and she loves him and he is nothing like the men she hates and never has been. She can live with that. She can live _well_ with that.

Later, as they are alone in the honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel, celebrating their reunion, she turns and looks at him intently. "Tell me about you," she says. "Tell me everything."

He smiles and takes her hand.

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><p><strong>AN: Thank you for reading, please review!**


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